Pop
by SaturnineSunshine
Summary: Post-series. "She had to admit, no matter what Blair ever said, she had the most grace an angry four-month pregnant woman could have in a hotel ballroom while stalking her husband and father of her child." Sooner or later, it becomes impossible to deny that Blair is having Charles Bartholomew Bass' child.


A/N: To my very best friend on the occasion of her birthday. You asked for post series and marriage, and this is what I came up with. Hope you like it. I'm a tad rusty.

Summary: She had to admit, no matter what Blair ever said, she had the most grace an angry four-month pregnant woman could have in a hotel ballroom while stalking her husband and father of her child.

Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me. All characters and love belong to Gossip Girl. No beta.

* * *

When Blair woke up that morning, she was fat.

It was dark when she opened her eyes. The right side of the bed was cold and she had a dizzying sense of foreboding. It wasn't until the sun had rising and she attempting to zip her dress up in the back did it hit her.

Three ours later Serena found her on the floor.

"Dorota's in Minsk."

Serena only sighed and held out her hands to her best friend. Blair glowered but eventually allowed the blonde to hoist her to her feet.

"You're stronger than you look."

"You weigh all of ninety-five pounds," Serena returned.

"My dress tells me differently."

Serena took a step back, eying her friend critically. "Turn."

Blair sighed dramatically and showed Serena her back. The blonde didn't even need to get a pair of pliers. The zipper went up in a matter of seconds.

"Don't look at me because you're freakishly strong."

"You weren't even stuck," Serena accused.

"I didn't call you!" Blair shrieked.

"You were a panic attack away from diving into the Godiva," Serena said. "What are you doing?"

"Do you really expect me to go to the Plaza looking like an elephant?"

For a moment, Serena was certain that it was one of her best friend's melodramatic attacks. She looked at how the dress clung to Blair's body in confusion and then it hit her.

"B," Serena said gently, guiding her to the bed. "You're pregnant."

If looks could kill.

Blair's were daggers.

"I'm fat."

"You do realize that in order to have a baby you have to gain weight," Serena said.

"Obviously," Blair snapped. "But I didn't look like I was shoplifting a watermelon under my tube top from Wallmart yesterday."

Serena looked again and smiled. Only Blair would notice the slight slope of her stomach starting to protrude through her tasteful dress.

"It's your time," Serena said. "You've just popped."

"I'm not an Easy Bake Oven, Serena," Blair said sharply. "I've researched it. I have four months until I start to show."

"First of all," Serena said, "it's three months. If that. And second of all, every mother pops. I was talking to Mom about it."

"Why were you talking to Lily about having a baby?" Blair said accusatorily.

Serena rolled her eyes. "Because you're married to her son."

Blair eyed her warily.

"And this has nothing to do with the fact that you're clearly avoiding Eleanor."

Blair let out a theatrical gasp as she was wont to do. Though she hadn't looked like it until this morning, Blair was very pregnant and had become beyond obvious to everyone but her mother.

"You are not seriously suggesting I go see my mother like _this_."

As if she had an embarrassing condition. Though Serena thought Eleanor would probably see it that way when it came to her only child.

"Fine," Serena acceded. "Dare I ask what Chuck is up to that he isn't here with you and your latest mental deterioration?"

Blair hated how Serena talked now that she and a pretentious no-longer-anonymous blogger had resumed their deluded and – quite frankly – disturbing relationship.

"I'll assume that you've had a recent bout with syphilis that has made you insane," Blair practically growled, "to make you think I would ever let him see me like this."

"You mean… pregnant?" Serena teased.

Blair glowered.

"Blair," Serena said. "You are his wife. He knows you are pregnant. What is the problem?"

"The problem is that I have to be at The Palace in less than twelve hours and no one wants to invest in someone whose wife gained thirty pounds over night."

"Well that's an exaggeration," Serena rolled her eyes. "I'm sure that investors will care that his wife is pregnant and not the years of whoring, debauchery, and illegal substances he filled himself with since puberty."

"Sarcasm is not helping, Serena," Blair said darkly. "And that so isn't the."

"Are you sure about that?" Serena asked doubtfully. "If you don't show up tonight then you're really going to embarrass him."

Embarrass wasn't the word Blair would use. Chuck would be left alone, covered in women as if he had sent out the Bass signal. And the absence of his very public wife would go noticed, not to mention the keep-away-from-my-husband-you-hussies aroma that only she could produce.

"I need a new dress," Blair said. "And don't say we can just look in your closet because I know nothing is going to fit me. Don't insult me."

"How about Dorota's closet?" Serena flashed her best friend a grin.

Blair hated her.

She told her as much when the statuesque blonde fitted her into a sparkling number that was sure to detract from her girth, apparently. Like Serena would know. Blair knew without a doubt on that magical day when her best friend found herself impregnated by a Brooklyn vessel, she would keep her flawless figure no matter how much ice cream and chip sandwiches she ate.

Blair was certain Serena's hangover cravings would directly correlate to her demands whenever she got knocked up.

By the time they had reached the hotel, her thoughts were getting darker and darker and she was squirming in her dress.

Serena needn't have worried. That being said, she really hadn't. She had known as soon as she got her best friend into the place, the feral maternal instinct in Blair would flare to life. Serena knew this especially since the daughter of a French diplomat had asked her stepbrother to show her around that night.

Blair tore her hand ferociously from Serena's grasp. She had to admit, no matter what Blair ever said, she had the most grace an angry four-month pregnant woman could have in a hotel ballroom while stalking her husband and father of her child.

He always said her voice like that. Especially when he was amused. It infuriated Blair to know end, and yet when he purred her name smugly, it was as if nothing had changed.

She still wanted to slap him.

"Blair…"

As though he was innocent and everything just happened to him. As though he never calculated anything. As if everything didn't occur to him.

"Who's your friend?" Blair asked through gritted teeth.

His smile was fluid and warm and she really wish that she could punch it off of him.

"As if you don't know."

Blair always made a habit of knowing people and the daughter's of people. And she especially detested French daughters of people. The two of them always had issues with the French.

But he didn't seem to be having a problem now. Instead, her husband seemed to be thoroughly entertained.

"You have your jealous look about you." Chuck always said everything like it was a come-on and she didn't know what was more irritating at the moment. That or the girl who looked only slightly more innocent than he did.

"You've got that scoundrel look about you," she retorted. She returned to the girl. "I'm Blair. His wife."

Chuck only had to sit back and watch her burst into flames, but she couldn't possible stop herself. Lately, all she felt was fire.

"Your husband was kind enough to show me around," the girl said through a thick accent. Blair loathed her even more. She doubted she was even out of prep school yet.

"I'm sure he was more than happy," Blair said. "And on a school night."

"Blair."

He wasn't purring anymore. His voice was short and she knew she was reaching dangerous territory.

"I really hope you aren't out too late," Blair continued. Chuck watched the stretch of her mischievous lips. "If he gets too stimulated he can get tired," Blair said. "That happens because he's old.

Chuck raised his eyebrows. "I'm the one that gets tired?"

"It was nice meeting you," the girl said weakly.

English was not her first language.

Blair wasn't sure it was hers either because now that she was alone with her husband, she felt weak. Her rage was consuming her and she couldn't stand to look at him for another nanosecond.

She stormed past him, which had not gone unnoticed by his uncle who had been mingling right behind them.

"Trouble in paradise?" she heard him call casually.

She had barricaded herself in Chuck's office in a matter of minutes.

He was there in a matter of seconds.

Blair made sure she was obscured behind his desk when he crashed in, her fingers steepled beneath her chin.

He crossed his arms over his chest.

"Is there something we need to talk about?" he asked calmly. She liked how his cravat was askew.

Blair cleared her throat daintily. "You are a rich and famous person and that will make people want to sleep with you."

Chuck took that in for a beat. His smile was insolent. "Do you want to sleep with me?"

"Do _you_?" Blair snapped, jumping to her feet in a fury. To his credit, he never looked at her stomach. He only looked confused.

"…_what_?"

Blair should have had the decency to sit back down, or least make her leave but his eyes were suddenly soft and god, did she truly hate him.

"I waited for you," he said gently.

"Waited for your whale of a wife to embarrass you, you mean," Blair said darkly.

And finally he did look. He looked as though he was seeing her for the first time.

"That's what this is about?" he asked.

"You were gone this morning."

"As I am wont to do on most week days."

"Do not mock me Charles Bartholomew Bass."

He rolled his eyes at her threatening tone and rounded the desk.

"You know it's okay," he said. His hands were outstretched like he was trying to sooth a wounded deer. She wasn't any animal and she doubted he would be very good at soothing them if she was.

"It isn't time yet," Blair said. "It's too soon."

"I know." His arms were around her, her heart thudding against his chest.

"I didn't think about it," she said. "I should have thought about it."

"It would have happened sooner or later," Chuck said. "But everything is going to be okay. I'm going to make this okay."

"You can't," she said. "You can't save me. If something—If something happens again, I won't survive it."

"No more limo rides for you." His voice was teasing but her nails bit into his arms. She didn't have to stomach for it right now.

"You can't stop me from hurting it again," she said softly.

He took her face in his hands and scowled at her. "Don't you do that. Don't you ever think that. What happened before was not your fault. It will not happen again. We're not going to lose the baby again."

She liked his use of we and hugged him tighter.

The first time she had become pregnant she wore baggy clothes. You couldn't really tell she had anything beneath her dress other than her stomach. Right now she wore a fore fitting maternity dress that displayed her pregnancy to the world. It felt right. But it still scared her.

The first time she had become pregnant she wasn't married. She was stressed. She confined herself to her room and she wasn't in love with her fiancé that way she was in love with the scoundrel she had known for her entire life.

It hadn't been right then, but it was right presently.

The first time she had become pregnant she had climbed into a speeding vehicle and then she wasn't pregnant anymore.

But now she had popped and her husband's arms were around her.

And she wasn't afraid anymore.


End file.
